the right hand, and seven on the left.  When he opened the book all present stood up, both men and women; with loud Amen they joined in the opening blessing, lifted up their heads, and cast themselves on the ground.  Then he read the book, from early morning till mid-day, in small sections, which were repeated and expounded by a number of Levites dispersed throughout the crowd.  The effect was that a general weeping arose, the people being aware that they had not till then followed the commandments of God.  Nehemiah and Ezra and the Levites had to allay the excitement, and said:  “This day is holy unto Jehovah your God; mourn not nor weep.  Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet, and give unto them that have brought nothing with them.”  The assembled people then dispersed and set on foot a “great mirth,” because they had understood the words which had been communicated to them.  The reading was continued the next day, but before the heads of families only, and a very appropriate section was read, viz., the ordinances as to festivals, and particularly that about the feast of tabernacles, which was to be kept under branches of trees on the 15th day of the 7th month, the month then just beginning.  The matter was taken up with the greatest zeal, and the festival, which had not been kept RITE sic! since the days of Joshua ben Nun, was now instituted in accordance with the precepts of Leviticus xxiii. and celebrated with general enthusiasm from the 15th to the 22nd of the month. 1

*************************************** 1.  For eight days, according to Leviticus xxiii. 39:  as against Deuteronomy xvi. 13-15. ***************************************

On the 24th, however, a great day of humiliation was held, with sackcloth and ashes.  On this occasion also the proceedings began with reading the law, and then followed a confession of sins spoken by the Levites in the name of the people, and concluding with a prayer for mercy and compassion.  This was preparatory to the principal and concluding act, in which the secular and spiritual officials and elders, 85 in number, bound themselves in writing to the Book of the Law, published by Ezra, and all the rest undertook an obligation, with oath and curse, to walk in the Torah of God, given by His servant Moses, and to keep all the commandments of Jehovah and His statutes and laws.  Special attention was directed to such provisions of the Pentateuch as were of immediate importance for the people in the circumstances of the day—­the greater part of the whole work is about the ritual of the priests—­and those were in particular insisted on which refer to the contributions of the laity to the priesthood, on which the very existence of the hierocracy depended. 1

*************************************** 1.  Nehemiah viii. 1-x. 40.  The credibility of the narrative appears on the face of it.  The writer of Chronicles did not write it himself, but took it from his main source, from which also he drew the fragments he gives us of the memoirs of Ezra and Nehemiah.  This we see from the fact that while copying Nehemiah vii. in Ezra ii. he unconsciously goes on with the beginning of Nehemiah viii. (= Ezra iii. 1).  That shows that he found Nehemiah vii. and viii. in their present connection, and did not write viii. seq. himself, as we might suppose. **************************************